What do you mean “budget”?
I squeeze pennies so hard they need therapy and always have. I remember loaning money to my older siblings to buy game systems and fund dates.
Ever since I saw a documentary on the great depression and spoke to my grandmother about what it was like to live through it I started noticing that we as a country we’re not doing so great. I’ve been working and saving most of my money since I was in first grade, but by middle school I just decided to abstain from almost every kind of expense I could.
I’ve never struggled financially but that’s because I learned that you don’t need to buy much stuff if you make your own, can live on less, and have a pervasive crippling anxiety about the collapse of western civilization.
So yeah I’ve been running on the vibe “The Great depression is coming again and there’s no way I can save enough to be prepared”
This has earned me a meager modest lifestyle, but my family eats very well, has a clean home, and has plenty of modern luxuries and toys even if some of them might be a bit worn, rough around the edges, or unfashionable.
I didn’t have to learn to live on lentils but I did have to give up on things my parents found very accessible like restaurants, travel, new things, packaged food, college, free time, bars, weekends, my own room, cars, movie theaters, most museums and non-critical medical care.
So yeah, I guess compared to my peers I’m crushing it because in all of my frugality I managed to avoid racking up six figures of college debt! I’ll never own a house though.
im kinda like this but my retirement looks like its going to be the richest homeless man on the street.
that’s deeply sad :( you’ve denied yourself so much, and you still can’t even afford your own house. at that point why care? why not enjoy things like eating out, travel, or non-critical medical care?
if another great depression comes everyone will be fucked no matter their wealth. but most people will at least get to keep memories of little luxuries, whilst you already live like the world collapsed
im like him and im ok with it. Ill take a walk in nature or a little time with my wife or playing with the dog almost over anything more. A few more months of simple living is greater than a lifetime of frivolities to me.
Iol, is it supposed to be done in any other way than vibes?
I spent late 20s and early 30s living on 25k a year. I now make 4x that, I still live like I make 25k. My budget plan is to live like I’m pore
live like I’m pore
soaking in lots of moisturising creams then i assume?
Yeah I’m at 5x what I started out with and I’m broke as shit, maybe I’m lying a little bit, I have savings now but for the last 2 years it hasn’t grown at all. Although I now have more responsibilities that accounts for some of the increase in spending, I’m fully aware that as I made more, I normalized spending more.
My mother always said if you make a million dollars a day but spend a million and one you are still a pauper
My budget has been “don’t spend too much” for the last 10 years and it’s worked out wonderfully. You don’t need a clever laid out plan, you just need to ask yourself “how can I spend even less ?”
Cancel every subscription immediately unless you actually need it. Pirate everything. Get everything on sale or thrift it. Either buy the cheapest thing you can, or spend enough to buy the indestructible version you’ll keep for 15-20 years. Fix problems immediately for cheap before they get expensive.
As a result I’m still managing to save up money while my income is under 10K a year.
For tools you need it is so important to keep in mind that if:
you definitely need it only once - get the cheap one.
you will use it in the future - get the expensive one that laborers use.
Cheap tools are a money and a time sink
Same. My philosophy has always been to spend as little as possible and got my debts paid as soon as possible so they’re not hanging over my head.
I frequently check my bank account and use vibes to largely take care of my finances. It isn’t completely optimized or strict, but it works since my bills are predictable.
Putting longer term savings into CDs is something I’ve found to be helpful. I can get to the money if an emergency came up, but otherwise I treat that as my untouchable savings, so i get some artificial scarcity in the mix.
there’s no point to a budget if you minimize all costs anyways, and it means i get a surprise amount left over at the end of every month which i can do whatever i want with.
Which is usually just letting it pile up because i don’t know if my welfare will be denied at some point and having that buffer means i can afford to replace things every now and then.
You have money left over at the end of the month?
yes, through the magic of eliminating every expense i can.
My expenses are: Rent, electricity, internet, phone service, home insurance, bus ticket (in the winter), and food (of which i’ve been steadily finding cheaper and cheaper things to cook, most recently discovering that you can just fry the shit out of mixed frozen vegetables and it tastes amazing).It’s slightly terrifying to see what other people spend money on, like paying 5€ for a SINGLE CUP OF COFFEE… Or, like, owning a car at all. Buddy maybe you could afford to heat your luxurious mansion if you weren’t blowing half your fucking income on a living room with 4 wheels?
An incredible amount of people, probably most people, just seem to be fundamentally incapable of recognizing expenses as being expenses. Their brain just classes that cup of coffee as something required to live and thus the cost doesn’t exist. They’ll buy it every single day, even as it doubles in cost, and i’m not sure if the act of paying even consciously registers.
I pretented I just had less money than i actually had.
Studies and unemployment have coached me to use money minimally in daily life. As a result I can afford some pricy things with still modest means.
You don’t need a budget, just a crippling sense of guilt about spending money on anything other than the absolute essentials…
Who needs budgets when you have terrible anxiety about spending money
I’m frugal by nature. For most of my life I’ve always had enough savings to buy almost anything I want. Whenever I get a “bonus” from somewhere, I’m not even tempted to go on a spending spree - it doesn’t enable me to buy anything I couldn’t have already bought anyway. I’m way more excited about seeing the value of my investments go up than I would be about a new iPhone or whatever.
I live in an old house, wear old clothes, drive an old truck, never travel, never eat out, etc. I guess I just value different things than some other people. I’d rather be financially secure and look poor than the other way around.
I feel like there’s a certain minimum income level/social safety net you need to have to be able to live like this. Like at some point the desire to keep having food/shelter becomes enough of a motivating factor that you have to work out what you need to do.
I only really started not living paycheck around 1 year ago, and started investing last year at 33.
I think generally being in a bad mood about the state of the world makes you not wanna care about that stuff.
But now I do, and I am doing my stuff, but I don’t really have a budget, but have a spending pot for spending on whatever and I only buy necessities that are useful my life as I don’t care for physical things.
Better to buy experiences with money
I have a math brain; I do not, however, have a brain that can make plans or follow them consistently
Basically my financial situation is:
Me work. Me get paid. Banana purchase. Repeat.I too am an ape
The worst part is that I love math and numbers…just hate money and having to worry about it.
